


Weight Training

by Vexie



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Family, Found Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Tea, empire kids fluff, snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 17:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17750162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexie/pseuds/Vexie
Summary: Looking back, poring over the adventures they’ve had, things they’ve said or done in small moments, Beau’s well-trained mind can connect all the dots. The picture’s there. It’s been there the whole time. She should have known. Should have seen it. Should have had theories, at the very least.“Caduceus…am I…” Beau stops and takes a deep breath. “Am I a good friend?”Beau has a few late night conversations and continues her education in the complicated world of friendship.





	Weight Training

               The thing that gets Beau is how _quiet_ everything can be after major tragedies strike. She doesn’t know what she expects, really. She’d be pretty freaked out if people were crying in the streets or something. But it just seems impossible to her that Felderwind can be asleep after so much destruction and horror. There are Kryn and Righteous Brand and archmages and giant worms wreaking all kinds of havok…how can people possibly sleep with all of that going on? As she sits on the faux balcony just outside the window of the inn, everything is silent. No houses she can see have lights burning in them. There’s no movement, no sound. It’s almost _too_ peaceful.

               She supposes she’s just jealous because _she_ can’t sleep after all the shit that happened today. It just seems like everything is too much for her to process. Her mind aches like it used to at the monastery when she’d get overloaded with lessons—that tired, heavy feeling, like someone wrapped her brain in fuzz. But at the same time, new information is swirling around in there, making it impossible to relax enough for sleep. She leans her head back against the railing with a long sigh.

               It’s not even all of the shit going down in Felderwind. Sure, it brings the war into sharp relief…it’s _here_. Happening. It’s not just some distant rumor and a parade of soldiers anymore. But still…she doesn’t know anyone in Felderwind first-hand. She didn’t have friends here.

               But her friends did. One of her friends had a _husband_ here. A husband no one knew about. And a _child_.

               Two of her friends had completely different lives, different names. And she never even guessed.

               It’s a weird, lonely feeling. Like they're strangers now. Like she’s been betrayed somehow. She _knows_ that’s not right. It’s not about her, or them lying to her. She’s being petty—they had good reasons for doing what they did. But…

               Nott and Caleb weren’t ever Nott and Caleb. She can't quite comprehend it. 

               She feels like she should have known. Of anyone in the group, she _should have known_ that about them.

               It wasn’t like they were super best friends from the beginning or anything, but they got close while they were hunting the Iron Shepherds, trying to save Fjord, Jester, and Yasha. They were drawn together out of necessity. It was just the three of them after—

After.

               The three of them had clung to each other. Not physically or anything—none of them are that touchy. But as a group, they got closer. They relied on each other to get by and get their friends back. They had a special weird bond that you can only get with people when you have to do really dangerous, scary shit together. The kind of bond born from having to watch each other's backs every waking moment. The kind of bond that comes from burying a friend in a fast, shallow grave on the side of the road. They learned how to do a lot of stuff silently and how to read and look out for each other without letting on that they’re doing it.

               Why didn’t she know? Why didn’t she figure it out?

               Beau knows the signs of Caleb’s panic attacks before they happen now. She knows when he’s about to go zombie and when he’s about to get real jumpy. She learned—she had to make sure he wouldn’t run, back then. They’d needed him. She learned to pay attention. Not that it’s any less annoying, but she kinda gets him now. She knows he’s having a bad mental day when he keeps absently rubbing and gripping his forearms—it’s the biggest tell that he’s stressed or anxious. But she never knew why. She never even thought to ask. It was just…a Caleb Thing. (A Bren thing? Gods, she can’t connect that name to his face…it just doesn’t make sense to her.) He does all kinds of weird stuff. Stuff that makes him Caleb. (Does it still make him Caleb? How is any of this going to work?) How was she supposed to know? She knew he gave his “real” name way too often for someone who was so scared of people finding him all the time, but she never really dug into it. It’s his choice—what does she care? He’s always been big on “calculated risks”…she figured that was just one of them.

               Beau knows Nott hates water, but it never occurred to her that she had a trauma surrounding it. She knows that Nott has crazy strong maternal streak—it makes her roll her eyes on a regular basis. (Beau will never admit how comforting Nott’s mom-mode was during those bleak days up around Shady Grove. She’ll never admit that she probably wouldn’t have remembered to eat and take care of herself if it hadn’t been for Nott reminding her that she was still a human with needs.) She knows that Nott always had some pretty major self-esteem issues, but her story about just hating where she came from checked out. Hell, who’s Beau to reject that logic? But it never even crossed her mind to wonder if Nott was ever anything other than a little goblin girl. That she ever had anything like…like _that_ in her past? Beau never dreamed that she'd been a full grown woman with so much experience...who had  _died_. 

               Looking back, poring over the adventures they’ve had, things they’ve said or done in small moments, Beau’s well-trained mind can connect all the dots. The picture’s there. It’s been there the whole time. She should have known. Should have seen it. Should have had theories, at the very least.

 What kind of bullshit friend is she? She didn’t even try to figure it out. She never thought to ask. Not once.

               It’s no wonder no one seemed excited about getting a beach house with her when they finally get done adventuring. Who would want to live with someone as careless as her?

               “I don’t think that’s actually meant for sitting,” a low, amused voice says. Beau jumps, bashing the back of her head on the railing. She turns, rubbing her head. Caduceus is leaning out the window, two steaming cups in his hands, his eyebrows raised in surprise.  

               “What the hell, Caduceus?” Beau grumbles. “You can’t just sneak up on people like that.”

               “Sorry, Miss Beau. I just thought you might like something warm. It’s pretty chilly out there,” Caduceus says, offering her one of the cups of tea. Beau takes it. The cup is hot, almost burning her hands, but not quite. She holds it with both hands, letting the heat seep into her fingers. She hadn’t realized how cold they’d gotten.

               “Thanks,” she says, looking down into the cup.

               “You did a good job today, you know,” Caduceus says after a moment.

               Beau looks at him with raised eyebrows.

               “Yeah?” She says suspiciously. She waits for the _but_. There’s always a _but_ as far as Beau is concerned. Always something she could do better. Always some lesson to be learned.

               “You did. You helped everyone say what they needed to say. You kept a level head and kept everything from getting too tense. You did very well. I’m glad you were there,” Caduceus says, with a gentle firmness to his voice. There’s no _but_.

               Beau raises the tea to her lips and takes a small sip. It’s an herbal mix that reminds her of something a long time ago, when she was very small…something someone gave her when she was sick or had a nightmare…it tastes like a late night in a kitchen she doesn’t think about anymore. Who made it? She can’t remember now. Was it a cook or her nanny? It certainly wasn’t her mother.

               She shakes her head and sighs.

               “I guess I did do that,” she concedes.

               “Then why are you sitting outside all by yourself on a decorative structure late at night?” Caduceus asks.

               “Why are you leaning out a window talking to me so late at night?” Beau counters, quirking an eyebrow.

               “I was compelled to make tea,” Caduceus says simply, shrugging.

               Beau doesn’t know why she expected anything different. She looks down again. _Honesty_. Thoughts bubble up in her mind, but saying them out loud…her heart beats faster at the thought. She grips the cup tighter, letting the heat ground her. She’s not good at this telling-the-truth bullshit. It’s so much easier to lie and pretend you don’t feel anything. Telling the truth feels like she’s letting someone take a free hit at her, like when Dairon made her stand with her hands behind her head and let other students hit her abdomen with nothing but her clenching ab muscles to protect her. 

               _As if Caduceus would ever strike you_ , she chides herself.

               “Caduceus…am I…” Beau stops and takes a deep breath. “Am I a good friend?”

                 She sounds so pathetic, so stupid. But Caduceus doesn't laugh. His face is thoughtful. 

               “I think so,” Caduceus says. “Though I don’t know if I’m a very good judge. I never had many friends—just a big family. But I think I know what a good relationship and a bad relationship are like. I think you try to make your relationships good ones, and you try to keep everyone around you safe and happy. So...yeah. Yeah, I’d say so.”

               For some reason, it doesn’t make Beau feel better to hear him say it. He's missing the point, somehow. 

               “I just…I don’t know. I feel like I should have done better before now. I should have realized that they were lying. I should have realized that they weren’t okay. I mean…I knew they weren't okay, but not like…” Beau stops, making a frustrated noise. “I just feel like I should have paid better attention instead of just focusing on me and my goals. I feel like I’m really selfish sometimes, you know?”

               Caduceus makes a low _hmmm_ noise in his chest, shaking his head, his pink hair rippling. It almost looks white in the dim light. 

               “I don’t think that’s right at all. You usually do a good job of checking in on everyone. It’s not your fault that you didn’t somehow discern everything everyone was working very hard to hide from us,” he says, giving her a mildly teasing grin.

               “But if I’d listened closer, if I’d tried, I could have figured it out—”

               “And done what with it?” Caduceus asks, raising his eyebrows. “Revealed their secrets before they were ready? Do you think that would have been better for them?”

               Beau pulls her knees in to her chest, resting the cup of tea on top of them.  She imagines confronting Nott about being a halfling. She would have panicked. Beau remembers her stiff anger when they’d cornered her about her and Caleb’s intentions with the group and whether they could be trusted. And Caleb…if she’d figured out he had another name and confronted him with it, he’d have been long gone. He'd only told her about his parents after making sure he had an escape route. If she had approached him first...that would be enough to send him away for good. 

               “I guess…I guess I never thought of it like that,” she admits.

               “You know, I remember when the three of you showed up at my home. There were two others with you, but I could see that it was you, Mr. Caleb, and Miss Nott who were really bound together, and incomplete at that. You had other friends with you, but the three of you were looking out for each other like…well, a family,” Caduceus muses. Beau looks up at him, but he’s staring off into the night, remembering.

               “It’s one of the things that told me I should come with you,” he continues softly. “This group of people is something rare, something special. And you’re a very important part of that. And it has nothing to do with how many secrets you figured out. It's because of you being you, doing exactly what you did.”

               He does look at her now, smiling.

               _I love you, Beau_.

               Beau’s heart swells in the same way. It’s a foreign feeling, but it feels nice. She smiles a little.

               “Thanks, Cad. I guess…I guess I know that. I guess just part of me feels like I failed, not knowing. Like how Caleb and I don’t always…listen to each other. Like maybe if I’d listened better before, I could have done more to help,” she says.

               “Sometimes all you need to do is be there when they need you to be there, listen when they need you to listen, and be strong enough for them to lean on when they can’t stand on their own,” Caduceus says, shrugging.

               “Wow. That’s…that’s pretty deep,” Beau comments, raising both eyebrows.

               “It’s part of what my family does. People usually only came to the Blooming Grove in times of great tragedy. They usually need someone to lean on, then,” Caduceus says. “It’s our responsibility to be that person.”  

               “You miss it?” Beau asks softly.

               She wonders what she’s missed in not spending more time listening to Caduceus. What stories does he have to tell? What does he need from her? She’s suddenly searching his face as if she’s just seeing him for the first time, wondering what she hasn’t noticed, what she hasn’t seen before. He catches her staring and gives her a knowing smile.

               “I do, but here is where I need to be now. I feel it. And I’m glad to be here, where I can do some good,” he says.

               “That’s fair,” Beau says.

               “You’re exactly where you need to be, too, Miss Beau. Sometimes people need someone strong to help them carry their weight,” Caduceus says. "You're certainly that." 

               Beau smiles down into her tea.

               “Thanks, Caduceus.”

               “Drink that tea up, then get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow,” Caduceus says with a nod. He backs out of the window.

               “Night, Cad,” Beau calls.

               “Goodnight, Miss Beau,” he says, before wandering back down the hall.

               Beau takes another sip of tea and looks out over the quietness of Felderwind. She does feel a little better. Caduceus has that effect on people. He’s just like the tea he makes…warm, gentle, and leaves you feeling a little bit better. Beau resolves to try to be more like tea. She wonders idly what flavor tea she’ll make someday, if someone ever made tea out of her. It’d probably be something bitter. But hopefully not bad. 

               This time, she hears approaching footsteps before she can be startled. Caleb leans out the window, looking down at her curiously.

               “Can’t sleep, either?” Beau asks, looking up.

               “Nein,” Caleb says softly. “What are you doing out here?”

               “Drinking tea,” Beau says. She notices the second cup of tea sitting untouched on the windowsill and understands. “I think Caduceus left you a cup, too. You wanna come out?”

               Caleb looks over at the cup of tea, surprised. He picks it up and looks at Beau, hesitating. Beau holds out her hand and takes his cup so he can crawl through the window with much less grace than she did. He eases himself down onto the wood slats between the wall of the inn and the balcony. There's only a few feet of space. Beau likes the narrowness--it feels safe. 

               “You did not pick a convenient place to sit,” Caleb remarks.

               “Look man, if they didn’t want people to sit out here, they shouldn’t have made this shitty little balcony. What’s the point of these, anyway?” Beau looks at the balcony with disdain, handing Caleb his cup.

               “Juliet Balconies, named after a character in a famous play who has an iconic balcony scene, are used in larger cities where the buildings are closer together and there’s no room for a full balcony. They allow for large windows that can be opened to let in light and air without worrying about people falling out. And of course, because they gained popularity in big cities, architects in smaller towns like this one began imitating the style,” Caleb recites.

               Beau blinks at him.

               “Why do you even know that?” she asks.

               “Some places I have been do not have many books to choose from,” Caleb says with a small shrug.

               Beau nods. Usually she'd tease him more, but not tonight. For a few minutes, they sit in silence, each sipping their tea. Slowly, Caleb settles in, stretching his legs out to one side of Beau. She keeps one leg on top of the other toward the outside, giving him space to stretch out. Their legs touch, but neither one is cramped. It’s a comfortable, companionable position.

               “So uh. What’s keepin’ you up?” Beau asks lamely, breaking the silence. As if she doesn’t know. But it’s not important to know, it’s important to _listen_.

               “Just…processing, really,” Caleb replies, looking down.

               “Yeah, there’s a lot of shit to process today,” Beau says. She pauses, giving Caleb a look. “ _Bren._ ”

              Caleb flinches as if she’d slapped him, wincing.

              “Please…do not call me by that name,” he says in a low, strained voice. “I am still Caleb.”

              Beau nods slowly. _Wrong_. She breathes in the scent of herbal tea and tries to think of how Caduceus would handle things.

              “Yeah…sorry, Caleb,” she says. “I didn’t mean…actually, hey, since it's just us, I wanted to tell you that you did real good today.”

              Caleb glances up at her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. She sees the question on his face, almost like he’s waiting for the compliment to come back around and bite him. Like he’s waiting for her to say _but_. She presses on. 

              “I uh, I know that wasn’t easy for you to tell them all that stuff about your past. Especially with, y’know, everything going on. I know that was hard. But you did good,” Beau says. “I’m kinda…proud. Or whatever.”

              Beau is once again glad that she has a complexion that doesn’t blush easily as her face burns. She’s really bad at this whole…caring about people and talking to them thing. No matter what Cad says, she feels awkward, like the words just fall out of her mouth like rocks.  But the small smile that crosses Caleb’s face makes it worth it. He never looks truly happy, but he looks a little less sad. And that’s something.

              “I appreciated your support today, Beauregard,” he says. “Thank you.”

              He’s the only person who ever uses her full name, she realizes. He’s the only person she’ll _let_ do it, really. She corrects everyone else. She always hated her full name. It’s a boy’s name, not meant for her, but it’s the only one they’d chosen so it’s what she got. But for some reason, it doesn’t sound as bad when Caleb says it. Maybe it’s because he’s never questioned it or made fun of her for it. Or maybe it’s just the accent. She’d never noticed before today…all this talk of names is making her overthink all this.

               What does Caleb hear when she says his name?

              “You…ever gonna tell them the rest of the story?” she asks. “You kinda…left some stuff out.”

              The smile fades from Caleb’s face like a candle going out. Beau almost regrets asking.

              “No,” he says, then sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe. It wasn’t important at the time.”  

              “I mean…that was a pretty good opportunity,” Beau points out. Caleb lets out an almost hysterical laugh. 

              “How? How would it have been good? When…a mother has been separated from the child she loves for so long. When we just took a child from her loving mother a few days ago. And I…” Caleb trails off. He’s looking through Beau, past her, shaking his head. His voice drops to a whisper, then. “And with the smell of smoke and fire and  _those people_  so close…no. I couldn’t.”

              “Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” Beau says, trying to soften her voice. _Sound like tea._ The last thing she wants is a full blown Widogast panic attack. She puts a hand on his knee. “I wasn’t trying to yell at you, I was…trying to help, I guess. I know I’m bad at it but…”

              “Why is it so important to you?” Caleb asks after a moment, focusing his blue eyes back on her. He has the most intense gaze of anyone she’s ever met.

              He doesn’t look angry with her, which is a surprise. He looks more curious than anything else. He’s resumed running his thumb across the edge of the cup in his hands. Beau sighs, reminding herself that they’re being honest now. He’s _listening_.

              “I don’t know. I guess…I just want you to really believe that we’re ride or die. That we're  _al_ _l_  here for you. And I know you'll never believe that as long as you’re holding…the entirety of what you did against yourself. You’re prolonging them finding out so you can keep this one thing to yourself, this one reason you think they’ll hate you. You won’t know until you just do it,” Beau says.

               _I want it to be done,_ she doesn’t add. _I don't want it to be a question anymore. I just want you to know nothing’s going to shake us. We’re here for better or worse. We’re family._

              Caleb sighs. He looks so tired and worn. It makes him look older.  

              “Maybe so,” he says. “But today was not about me. Not really. It was about…about Nott. And divulging the information that would best help her. Confessing my…my sins wouldn’t have been useful to her or to the rest of the group. Explaining who these people are and what they’re capable of was more important in our current situation.”

              Beau gives him a half smile.

              “Mm…yeah. That's a good point. You’re actually kinda smart, you know that?” she teases, earning another tired smile from him in return.

              “So I have been told,” he says.

              They go back to companionable silence. Caleb leans his head back against the balcony, closing his eyes with a sigh. Beau studies him for a moment. He almost looks peaceful. She hates to disturb him, but there’s one more question she has.

              “Hey…if you were just divulging useful information, why’d you tell everyone…y’know. About your name?” she asks.

              Caleb’s eyes open. He looks back at the window, down the hall where the rest of the Nein are tucked up in their beds…Fjord and Caduceus, Jester and Yasha…and Nott. The last room, Beau agreed to share with Caleb for the night. It was an awkward conversation, mostly comprised of a concerned Jester being protective (and thus possessive) of Nott, and Nott and Caleb watching each other uncomfortably, neither speaking. That’ll need to be resolved, Beau thinks.

              “Caleb Widogast was the name I gave to Nott when we met. Caleb…belonged to her first,” Caleb says, voice so soft Beau almost misses it. “If Nott is not…Nott…then who is Caleb?”

              Beau is not a hugger, but the look on his face kind of makes her wish she was. She can at least try it. She takes a deep breath and carefully maneuvers her way to the other side of the faux balcony—the Juliet Balcony, as he’d called it. She nudges him closer to the wall so she can slide down next to him, sliding one arm up and around his shoulders, making sure to place her hand on his far shoulder. One hand on the shoulder. It’s their own show of affection. It’s their thing. She remembers his shaking hand coming down on her own shoulder earlier, as he took the breath to tell his story. His long fingers held on to her shoulder as if she were his one tether to this world. She'd held on to his hand--holding him steady. 

                _Sometimes people need someone strong to help them carry their weight._

              “Who is Caleb is a question I’ve been trying to figure out since I met you, man,” she says, gently teasing. “Look. You said…Caleb belonged to her first. But you belong to all of us now, right? A little?”

              Caleb reaches up to cover her hand with his own. He doesn’t quite smile, but something in his eyes eases. He nods, giving her hand a squeeze.

              “Ja.”

              Beau lays her head on Caleb’s shoulder. He tenses for a moment, then slowly relaxes and leans his head on hers. It’s kind of nice. It feels warm and familiar somehow, though Beau is pretty sure she's never sat like this with anyone in her entire life. 

              “I’m glad you’re Caleb Widogast,” Beau says, nudging him with her head. “And that’s me being honest.”

              She feels him laugh. His laughter is rare--more frequent than when they first met, but still a pretty rare occurrence. She smiles. 

              “Me too, believe it or not,” Caleb says. There's a warmth to his voice. Maybe he even means it. 

               They sit like that for a long time, mostly in silence. Every so often, one of them will comment to the other on the night sky, or some feature of Felderwind that they can see, or something about the tea they both slowly sip, discussing small things until both of them are yawning.

               Beau untangles herself from Caleb, slipping back through the window and reaching through for the cups, which Caleb hand to her. She stacks them in front of Fjord and Caduceus’s door, trusting the firbolg to wake up first and see them before Fjord kicks them over. 

               Beau looks at the cups on the floor for a moment. Not for the first time, she wonders if Caduceus isn’t a little bit of a mind reader. How did he know Caleb would come to talk to her? How did he know to make two cups of tea? Was it his Wildmother? Or just Caduceus being himself?

                Caleb climbs through the window and closes it behind them.

               Silently, they walk to their room and get ready for bed. This is a familiar process Beau memorized during that time on their way to the Shady Creek Run. She’d watched Caleb set up his thread around them, watching every movement to assure herself that they were all safely inside his boundary. Sometimes she still wakes up counting heads to make sure they’re all still together, that no one was taken during the night.

               She’s never told him how glad she was that he always made sure he was within eyesight when she awoke. They’ve never talked about it, but he was right where she needed him to be every morning during those dark days. He'd known to do it, somehow, without her ever asking. 

               As Beau settles into her bed, drowsiness making everything softer, she wonders if she was where he needed her to be, too. Was that part of it?

               “Beauregard,” Caleb says softly in the darkness. “Danke.”

               “Yeah…” Beau says in return. “Get some sleep, Widogast.”

               “Ja,” he says. She hears him roll over.

               Beau closes her eyes. She’s where he needs her to be now. She knows that much for sure. This weight she can definitely carry.

              

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Raise your hand if you're still not over ep 48-49 yet! Mmhmmm~ same. 
> 
> I had the conversation between Beau and Caleb written as a cut scene from "Becoming Caleb," and posted on its own on Tumblr, but I really wanted to explore Beau's feelings more. And I really just want to write Beau and Caleb forever because their relationship is one of my favorite things ever, of all time. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this actually NOT TRAUMATIZING thing that I wrote! Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Feel free to drop a comment if you like~


End file.
